Contractors Aggregate Carbon Credits

Contractors accredited by the Building Performance Institute (BPI) offer utilities and state conservation programs huge opportunities to verify savings not only in energy usage in existing homes, but also in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. That’s because the testing in and testing out procedures that BPI Accredited contractors conduct at every home performance job can be used to calculate and document carbon and other GHG emissions savings. In New York State, BPI Accredited contractors participating in the Home Performance with Energy Star (HPwES) program have been racking up all types of savings—beginning with completing 16,734 home performance jobs through September 2007. The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), which administers HPwES in New York, regularly undergoes an extensive evaluation of program savings—and the most recent results are noteworthy indeed. In addition to saving on average over 970 kilowatt-hours per home per year, the program has saved on average an impressive 34.6 million British thermal units of natural gas and 5.7 million British thermal units of oil per home per year. How can these savings be translated into a commodity that could be traded or sold? NYSERDA has verified that over 50,500 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) have been ...